Category Archives: Rants

Going, gone

Posted on November 23, 2011

The main road west from Cambridge used to go down the main street of the market town of St. Neots. But there has long since been a bypass, and it is quite a while since I’ve turned off to take … Continue reading →

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He that toucheth pitch …

Posted on March 28, 2011

The story so far. The Observer run a piece entitled ‘Academic fury over order to study the big society’ which starts off Academics will study the “big society” as a priority, following a deal with the government to secure funding … Continue reading →

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Not even close

Posted on October 21, 2010

Given the choice, I prefer hearing a good string quartet play to almost any other concert-going. When we lived in Sheffield, we were spoilt by being able to go to see the Lindsays in their prime (and we also got … Continue reading →

Posted in Music, Rants | 6 Comments

Flattery will get you nowhere: I want cash

Posted on September 5, 2010

I’ve just been asked to report on an application for a substantial grant from a rather wealthy grant-awarding body. “We will greatly value your expert opinion” etc. etc. Huh. I’m sure you will. Value it so much you aren’t offering … Continue reading →

Posted in Rants | 3 Comments

Pseuds vs academic bureaucrats

Posted on April 29, 2010

Let me come clean. By my lights, the University of Middlesex philosophy department appears to be a fount of appallingly pretentious pseudery and intellectual garbage of the worst kind. Don’t take my word for it; have a browse through the … Continue reading →

Posted in Academic life, Rants | 1 Comment

Planet de Botton

Posted on January 22, 2010

I’m all for popularizing philosophy in the right kind of way, and admire — not to say envy — the likes of A.C. Grayling and my colleague Simon Blackburn for their prose styles, their immense energy, good sense, ability to … Continue reading →

Posted in Rants | 22 Comments

Routledge go mad

Posted on January 19, 2010

I have on my desk my copy of Hartley Rogers’s wonderful Theory of Recursive Functions and Effective Computability. I’ve been checking my memory that he says that, for effective computability, the steps in a particular algorithm must be idiot-proof at … Continue reading →

Posted in Rants | 4 Comments

Standing in King’s Parade, tearing up tenners

Posted on January 11, 2010

I had to go along  to a meeting today, ostensibly about the future of funding for graduate students. It lasted an hour, though it was fortunately held just fifteen minutes away. Still, that’s an hour-and-a-half out of my life. There … Continue reading →

Posted in Rants | 4 Comments

The end of civilization as we knew it

Posted on November 24, 2009

Well, that really takes the biscuit. The University Library tea room has stopped using china cup and saucers like a civilized place, and started using disposable paper cups. Ye gods, what is the world coming to? Once upon a time, … Continue reading →

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Ruse gets a beta minus.

Posted on November 4, 2009

Philosophers don’t get asked often enough to write for the newspapers and weeklies: so it is really annoying when an opportunity is wasted on second-rate maunderings. Michael Ruse writes in today’s Guardian on whether there is an “atheist schism”. And … Continue reading →

Posted in Rants, Religion | 7 Comments